The covenant of life opened, or, A treatise of the covenant of grace

9. And our days (saith David) on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding life, and being is a shadow of being, and God is the only first excellent being: and suppose we should give life and being to and for him, it is but a borrowed shadow that we give him; And we are not lords of our own being, we have not absolute right over our selves to give our selves to him. If Do•g will not give himself to God, and act for God, Psal. 51.2.¹ God shall take thee away and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, and root thee out of the land of the living. Job 27.21. the east wind of God carrieth him away, and as a storm hurleth him out of his place. Ye shall bestow life and being worse then upon God. God shall make mortar of thee, O fool! who makes a god of borrowed I, great I and poor Nothing-self: Nay if there be a Pronoun in thee O let it be this: Oh if my separation from Christ and the blotting •f my name out of the Book of Life, and my heaven might be a footstool to heighten the glory, the high glory of the Lord in the salvation of many. ²2. This Pronoun self and mine is a proud usurper against God. Was he not an Atheist or a churl, and his name folly, who said, 1 Sam. 25.11. and breathed out so many my's? Shall I take my bread and my waters, and my flesh which I killed for my hearers, and give it to men whom I know not whence they be? And he was as mad a fool who thus speaks, Isa. 10.13. By the strength of my hand have I done it, and by my wisdom, for I am prudent: & I removed the bounds of the people—14. And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people, and as one gathereth eggs that are left, so have I gathered all the earth, and there was •one that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped. This […] the fool-axe boasting against him that heweth with it. And another fool said: Make an agreement with me by a present, and